


In Absentia

by netweight



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-02
Updated: 2003-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:05:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/netweight/pseuds/netweight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wolfram & Hart, Angel's office. No happiness here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Absentia

**Author's Note:**

> Set between BtVS's finale 'Chosen' and A:tS' season 5 premiere 'Conviction'.

She stands by the window, her posture a little stiff. Arms crossed over her chest, back straight. If you wouldn't know her, you'd think she's surveying the city laid down at her feet, scanning it for possible threats, not basking in the warm sunshine.

Maybe she is. Maybe he doesn't know her all that well anymore, this young looking woman with her reserve and her quietness. This woman that may be the love of his life.

There was a time when there was no 'maybe' about it. A time when it was a certainty as absolute as the sun rising to the East every day, bringing with it the condemnation to a half-life of shadows. Forever and ever until the end of time.

But prophecies and black midday skies and deals with the devil to save a miracle child

//days that never happened//

happened in the meanwhile. And now he sits in a room flooded with sunlight and he isn't quite sure of anything anymore.

  
***

  
The sight of her still makes his heart ache though.

Tightening in his chest, the longing for things he has lost his right to too many years ago or that were never his to begin with. The possibility of something good and pure embodied in a being fated to the sacrosanct. Destruction made holy, a path of thorns opposite his own.

If he could only…

'Touch me, bless me.' His plea had not been spoken aloud.

And she had. With words and love and virginal blood. And for that one night, the blood he claimed had been freely given.

Stupid of him to think that would have made a difference.

  
***

  
She bestows her gifts more carefully nowadays. Keeps to herself. All the power once so freely flaunted seems tapped, like water in a dam. About to burst but contained by sheer force of will. The intensity is nerve-shattering.

Is she mourning?

Shouldn't he be too?

He envies her the freedom to grieve publicly, the right to sackcloth and ashes she seems to forswear. Stoically perhaps. Selfishly for sure. He wants to force her to share thoughts and feelings the way she once shared high school dramas, kisses and trust. Simpler days when the cadence of her voice was a lifeline he could cling to.

He wants to hear her fear and pain voiced out. Some ghosts should be exorcised and they have to be hers. Only the dead can be lamented.

"Do you regret it?"

"Yes. No." She shrugs. "It was needed."

//close your eyes//

"Yes, it was."

He's not exactly sure what he's agreeing with, his mind caught in a labyrinth of ifs and regrets. He wants her to say more, wants to settle for the straightforward connotation and push away memories of all the chances lost

// Son // Sire // Slayer //

but she's uncooperative. Conclusive, judgment unclouded, she doesn't doubt and she doesn't dwell and she _doesn't_ want to talk about it. She seems at peace with her ghosts and is unwilling to gift him with the secret behind the truce.

He's left with the howling of his specters, no help forthcoming. After all these years, she shouldn't still be able to gut him like this.


End file.
